Buried in a hard drive someone thought they’d deleted was the video that has made Mayor Rob Ford an international target of satire, scorn and ridicule.

On Tuesday, Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair got word that investigators, using data recovery software, had, after nearly five months, recovered the files from an electronic device that belonged to one of the dozens of alleged gang members arrested on June 13, during the Project Traveller raids.

The year-long probe that swept up members of north-Etobicoke’s Dixon City Bloods street gang was, in many ways, the beginning of it all. (Project Brazen 2, the “drug trafficking” investigation that targeted the mayor, was a spinoff of Project Traveller.)

One of the Traveller targets, 27-year-old alleged gang member Mohamed Siad, happened to be the man in possession of a video showing Mayor Rob Ford appearing to smoke crack cocaine. While Siad was being watched by police for suspected gun and drug trafficking, he was also trying to sell the video (with the help of a broker) to the Star and American website Gawker.

A search warrant document released Thursday that was used in the Oct. 1 arrest of Ford’s “close friend” Alexander “Sandro” Lisi, reveals Lisi made a flurry of phone calls to Siad and other Project Traveller targets after stories of the video’s existence broke. There were also several phone calls, before and after the video story broke, between Lisi and Ford.

The claims made in the document have not been proven in court.

On Thursday, police charged Lisi with extortion in relation to attempts to get the video. Blair added the video will come out in court.

According to the nearly 500-page search warrant document (about half of which is censored), at 9:25 p.m. on May 16, one hour after the Gawker story broke, Lisi placed a call to Fabio Basso — a Ford friend who lives at 15 Windsor Rd., the home where the photo of Ford flanking Anthony Smith, who was shot dead in March, and Monir Kassim and Muhammad Khattak, both arrested June 13 in Project Traveller, was taken.

The rundown bungalow is a key location where different circles of Ford associates intersect. Police watched the house during Project Traveller and it was subject to a search warrant as part of the investigation, though the warrant never appeared to be executed.

The search warrant document quotes a confidential source telling investigators that the Basso home was a “trap house” or crack house that “belongs to a couple of crack heads but Dixon guys go there to ‘chop’ crack or just hang out and get drunk.” The source reported seeing alleged Dixon City Bloods Anthony Smith, Monir Kassim, Ahmed Dirie and Liban Siyad at the address. (Everyone, except Smith, has since been arrested).

Basso’s sister, Elena Johnson, who has a 2011 conviction for trafficking cocaine, also lives at the house and, according to sources, goes by the name “Princess” in the Dixon Rd. neighbourhood where many of the alleged gang members lived.

In addition to the photo of Ford taken in front of 15 Windsor Rd., the search warrant document suggests there may be another link between the mayor and the Bassos. In a partially censored portion of the document there are references to entries made in a notebook that appears to be Ford’s. One is from Jan. 7 and refers to contacting the water department for 15 Windsor Rd. The other, from March 20, “appears to be a list of bills outstanding for 15 Windsor Rd.”

“One possible explanation for these entries could be that the mayor is dealing with house maintenance and bill payment at 15 Windsor Rd.,” the document says.

On that May 16 night, after Lisi called Fabio Basso, he placed two calls to Liban Siyad. Both lasted over 90 seconds.

The next morning, on May 17, Lisi again made several calls to Basso. By the afternoon, he was placing calls to the video’s owner. Lisi called Mohamed Siad twice — once at 1:17 p.m. and then again at 1:23 p.m. The calls lasted three seconds and eight seconds respectively.

Throughout that day — the same day Ford called the drug allegations “ridiculous” — Lisi and Ford called each other six times and Lisi also exchanged several calls with the mayor’s logistics director David Price, who the Star learned was also making calls in the Dixon Rd. community.

Then, just after 11 p.m., Lisi called Siad twice. Both calls lasted three seconds.

On May, 18, Lisi was once again making calls to people in the Dixon Rd. neighbourhood. At 9:41 a.m. he called Mohamed Siad. That call lasted four seconds. Throughout the day Lisi and Ford called each other seven times. Then, at 9:45 p.m., Lisi placed a 46 second call to Liban Siyad.

Two days later, Lisi showed up at the Basso home asking about the video. Basso responded by telling Lisi they had gone to Windsor, Ont., according to a source who was present. The Star does not know what Lisi did with that information.

A day after that, on May 21, Fabio, his girlfriend, and Fabio’s mother were assaulted by an unknown attacker brandishing an expandable baton who broke into their home. No charges have been laid in the attack.

Law enforcement sources told the Star in June that the cops knew about the video because it came up during Project Traveller. Last week, citing police surveillance reports, the Star revealed police watched as Siad entered the Basso home on two occasions in April. Officers also watched what appeared to be a May 14 meeting between Siad and Gawker.

Under a section in the search warrant document labeled “Project Traveller and the Rob Ford connection,” there’s reference to a “supplementary report” from the gang probe which has a “timeline of Rob Ford related information.” This report was given to Project Brazen 2 lead investigator Det.-Sgt. Gary Giroux.

A summary of that “supplementary report” is mostly censored but does say that on April 9 police had “static surveillance” on the “crack house” at 15 Windsor Rd. where they observed “activity consistent with drug trafficking.”

There is also a reference to Ford’s cellphone “not being reported stolen.” Project Brazen 2 was sparked because of Lisi’s attempts to swap marijuana for a stolen cellular phone, according to police documents. A source has told the Star the phone belonged to Ford. Other sources have said Ford lost his phone in the Dixon Rd. neighbourhood.

For those involved in the Project Traveller investigation, the links to Ford came as a “complete shock” and investigators were “appalled,” said one law enforcement source, adding, “we knew (the video) existed, it was just a matter of finding it.”

When police, armed with a search warrant, busted down the door of Mohamed Siad’s Richgrove Dr. apartment on June 13, electronic devices were seized. Siad was arrested and is now facing multiple gun and drug charges.

The Star does not know if the hard drive the video was recovered from belonged to one of the devices seized at Siad’s apartment, or if it belonged to another Project Traveller accused.